


Staying for the Summer

by iexpectedsportaflop (MyChocolateAddiction)



Series: Lazy Town [1]
Category: LazyTown
Genre: Crying, Dual POV, Embarrassment, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fainting, Gen, My First Fanfic, Orphans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 17:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10470057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyChocolateAddiction/pseuds/iexpectedsportaflop
Summary: Stephanie wakes up one morning to realise it is her last day in Lazy Town. Robbie wakes up, naturally for once, one morning and is confused as to why it's so quiet.This is my first fic in a (hopefully) long series, it's multichapter but I wrote it all in one go.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I know that dual perspective is a bit awkward but I really wanted Robbie in my first fic, and that couldn't have happened if it was Stephanie the whole way through.
> 
> I don't like reading books and my friends tell me that's the key to good writing, so excuse the limited vocabulary and odd paragraph structure.

Stephanie yawned, looking at the clock. _8:07AM_ , perfect. She quickly clicked off her alarm right before it began to beep. The date blinked on the pink digital clock, just below the time. _August 30_. Today was the day she was... she was... leaving Lazy Town. She blinked, hoping she was still dreaming. _8:07AM August 30._ She pinched herself. _8:08AM August 30_. Breathing heavily, she felt tears welling in her eyes. Stephanie was leaving, she was leaving today.

A tear trickled out of her eye, leaving a shiny trail down her cheek and soaking into her bed-sheets. She grabbed her fluffy diary, filled with the wonderful memories of her time in Lazy Town, her _friends_ , lifted it above her head, and came down hard on her clock, smashing the snooze button and wrecking the top half of the display. Panting in exertion she tilted her head down, laughing through the tears. Boy, did that feel good.

"Oh my! Stephanie!!" called her uncle, breaking her away from her destructive thoughts "Are you okay? What was that noise?"

"I'm fine Uncle Milford!" Keeping the sadness hidden from her voice, Stephanie racked her brains for an excuse for the noise that had likely woken her uncle up. "I, um, rolled over in my sleep, and um, knocked my clock off."

She looked down at the wreck of her alarm clock. The whole top was open and some circuitry was showing, but the bottom of the display remained almost intact. _August 30_ , it taunted. She scowled heavily at it and closed her eyes, breathing deeply, knowing that she couldn't hit it again, however much she wanted to. Quietly, solemnly, Stephanie made her way to the electrical outlet and unplugged her clock. It buzzed faintly and the screen flickered to blank. "I hope I never see you again, you - you morning ruining monster!" she muttered in a determined half-whisper, stuffing the "monster" under the bed, where she couldn't see it any more.

Just as her tears began to dry up, she heard a knock at her window. Knowing who it was and missing him already, she began to sob uncontrollably, chest heaving.

"I came as quickly as I could! What's wrong? Hello? Stephanie?" She saw fingers drop from her second-story windowsill, heard feet hitting the ground and mere moments later, a loud knock at the front door. The lock clicked, the door swung open, and she heard, a muffled conversation between Uncle Milford and Sportacus, from which all she could properly make out was Sportacus mentioning he felt like she was in trouble.

A few heavy footsteps later there came a knock on her bedroom door. "Stephanie?"

"Come -sniffle- in..."  
Sportacus tentatively opened up the door, as if worried he would frighten her with his usual energetic movements. He wore a blue pajama set and... a headband around the top of his ears. Odd.

"Stephanie! Stephanie, what's wrong! Why are you crying! What happened! Can I help you? I have to help you!" Sportacus pleaded, and the hint of desperation in his voice reminded Stephanie that his biggest fear was being unable to help someone in need.

She knew he couldn't do anything, but for his own sake stuttered "I-I guess I could use -hic- could use a hug..."

Not a moment later she felt his strong arms around her as she heaved with sobs. From where she was sitting, the clock was right in her line of sight. Still off, but enough for another thick wave of tears to stream from her eyes and stain Sportacus's pajama top. They stayed like this, Sportacus patting her back comfortingly for a few minutes, in total silence other than the awful sound of Stephanie's crying.

"Shh... it's alright Stephanie... shh, shh, that's enough tears for now, shh, shh..." He pulled away from the hug and put his hands on Stephanie's shoulders. "Please, Stephanie, tell me what's wrong!" She inhaled painfully, calming herself enough to get a few words out.

"I-I... Sportacus. I'm leaving Lazy Town. To-today..." She fell back into uncontrollable sobs.

"What? Stephanie, I didn't know! Why didn't you tell me!?"

Ignoring the question, she continued, even more painfully, through more tears than she thought were possible to shed, "And I -sob- I don't, I don't want to! I don't have -sob- friends back in -sob- Temper Town! And I'll miss you all so -sob- much! I.. I don't WANT TO GO!!"

Stephanie could see tears pricking Sportacus's vision too, and as a shiny tear with a strange bluish tint to it rolled slowly down his cheek she recognised how hard this would be on him, and all the other friends she'd made in Lazy Town.  
"Stephanie, please, don't cry. I'm sure we can come visit you! And you visit us? Okay? Stephanie, it's gonna be okay, you're okay..." He trailed off as she turned her head to look at him, an odd mix of confusion across her features.

"Do you even know where Temper Town is?"

"Well... no.

"We're six hours away."

"Oh. Well maybe we could -" Stephanie relapsing into sobs cut him off from his idea, and she lay there, gasping for breath through tears and staring straight at her diary, page after page of good times with the others and little bits of clock embedded in the cover.

"I'm not going." Her voice was clear, as if she'd never cried at all. "I'm not going and that is that."

"But Stephanie," Sportacus coaxed, "you're going to have to leave, as much as we'd all love you to stay. You have school back home, and besides, what would you do about your parents? You need to go back, however much we will miss you, and you will miss us, and how terrible of a time you may be having at home, you must. You can't stay here forever. I'm sorry, Stephanie."

~

Robbie hurt all over. He scraped his arm and leg in a scheme a couple of days ago and had good reason to think he had slept quite heavily on his leg. He fumbled around in the dark for his phone, bashing his wrist against his bedside- no, chairside table. Turning it on, the light shining in his face, he saw it was almost ten-thirty. Why hadn't the kids and that flippity floppity elf with their irritating chatter, or song-and-dance and all of that nonsense woken him up?

He forced himself out of bed, groaning at any pressure put on his left leg and elbow, and half walked half crawled over to his coffee machine. Getting dressed could wait. He grabbed some grounds of instant from his near-empty jar and set the machine whirring.

"I wonder what miracle caused those little brats and Sporta-uh-loser to shut up this lovely morning?" Just then, his speakers swooped down from the ceiling to alert him that noise was being made and a scheme was urgently needing to be set in place, although Robbie didn't know if he could really be bothered today.

"Stephanie? Stephanie where are you? We want to play!" called a boy's voice from the speakers, which Robbie suspected to be Pixel's, sounding agitated.

"She's clearly not here, you dweeb, if she was you'd hear all sorts of giggling and chatter and I would have been awake for hours." His thinking out loud was interrupted by a sharp DING telling him his coffee was ready. He downed it in two gulps, hot as it was, and immediately gagged since he forgot the sugar. About to pour himself another cup, he remembered he didn't actually need it. Robbie getting enough sleep a night was so rare he had forgotten it had even happened. So he ate three sugar cubes, straight from the little purple pot he kept them in, pride of place, on the messy kitchen counter.

The speakers' algorithm had just decided the noise was gone and started moving up when they picked up a whooshing sound and clunked back down, startling Robbie. He stalked over to the periscope to see what it was, just in time to catch a glimpse of a tube, flying up into the sky and a nervous looking Pixel watching it fly.

"Drat! Sportaflop always comes down here when a kid needs him for something, no matter how small," Robbie muttered to no-one in particular. "And it's not like he will have left the airship, whenever he does that he starts loudly flipping and playing with the kids which clearly hasn't happened. Goodbye peace and quiet I guess." He decided he'd just go back and sit in his chair, and try to block out the noise. That's what he always did, and probably always will do. On the way back from the kitchen to the chair, however, he caught sight of himself in the mirror.

"I really do need to get dressed."

~

A final tear dropped from Stephanie's chin onto the floor and she determinedly wiped her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. Sportacus looked at her encouragingly, as they had been sitting on her bedroom floor without saying a word, watching the tears roll down from Stephanie's face for a solid twenty minutes or more.

"Are you feeling any better now, Stephanie?"

"I suppose I am. If this is going to be my last day here, we might as well have some fun, right?"

"Right!" Sportacus grinned. "But first I'm going to go get dressed!"

"Good idea, I will too. I'm a bit of a mess! See you in a minute!" Stephanie called as Sportacus dabbed his way out of her room and out of the house. She looked in her mirror, widening her eyes and wiping away dried tears with a little pink and white handkerchief.

Feeling a little better already, Stephanie made her way down the corridor she'd gotten so used to over the past month, to the bathroom. The cold water against her soft skin was a wake-up call and she felt refreshed enough to do an impromptu dance right there on the bathroom floor. She giggled, grabbing her toothbrush from the spotted pot by the sink and plopping a pea-sized blob of minty striped toothpaste onto it. Twenty times up, twenty times down, twenty times left, twenty times right!

Yay! Stephanie felt almost normal, she was back to her usual healthy routine and everything was going to be alright. Except it wasn't. It wasn't normal and the wonderfulness of the happy month she had taken for granted was about to be snatched away from her in just a few short hours. She felt her eyes well up with tears at that thought, but didn't let them fall. She would be tough, and stick through it. Even if it meant not thinking at all, she wouldn't think about it. "Think about what?" she murmured to herself.

When Stephanie exited the bathroom, she saw that Sportacus was already waiting for her outside her room, hat back on and previously droopy moustache waxed to perfection.

"What's taking you so long, Stephanie? Don't tell me you were in there crying this whole time?" asked Sportacus.

"I-um, I.. no, I wasn't. Not really, anyways. I need to go brush my hair and pick an outfit." replied Stephanie somewhat defensively, to which Sportacus raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything.

Hm. What to wear. Clothing wasn't usually a dilemma for Stephanie, just put on a dress and headband, then go play, but today she felt like she needed to make a good... last impression. "Think about what?" she muttered again, angrily. She picked out a pretty pink tank top with a picture of a cat wearing a tiara on it, and matched it with some black cotton shorts and pink flip-flops, raked a brush through her thick, tangled hair and pushed her headband on.

Stephanie pulled her bedroom open to greet a somewhat exasperated Sportacus, which was honestly to be expected given the time he had to wait, and he showed her Pixel's note he'd sent.

"I found this on the floor of my airship when I went up there to get changed," Sportacus said excitedly. "Pixel wants to play soccer but I'm the only one who has any soccer balls other than Stingy, and as always he's not sharing. We're a bit late since I was with you when this was sent, but I'm sure that's okay. Want to grab some breakfast before we go? I've already had mine."

"Sure." They trooped downstairs, and into the kitchen. Stephanie grabbed herself an apple and a glass of milk, and hungrily bit into the apple, feeling the sweet-and-sour juices seep from the apple and onto her tongue. She had only just realised how hungry she was. She bit into it again, finishing the entire apple in minutes. Washing it down with the glass of milk, she wondered how she was going to say goodbye to her friends. Her eyes screwed up, trapping any tears that would possibly fall. All she hoped is that her friends would be alright.

Sportacus noticed her on the brink of tears, and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Come on. Let's go, Pixel is waiting."

~

Running a gel-covered comb through his dark hair, Robbie pondered today's lack of noise. It was gone eleven and by now on any normal morning Disguise Time would have been at least an hour ago.

"I guess it's a good thing, I haven't gotten this much sleep in weeks and my eardrums will thank the little loudmouth brats too. Hm." Robbie pondered, "But it just begs me to wonder... why aren't they outside playing?"

He decided to go check through his periscope, they may be out and just playing a quiet game like hide-and-seek; which, although unlikely, would certainly explain the lack of noise. However, when he pulled it down and peered through, he saw nothing. No confused child looking for the others, no badly hidden child in the bush by the base of the periscope, nothing.

Just as Robbie began to shove the periscope back up, he caught a glimpse of a door opening out of the corner of his eye. He yanked the visor round just in time to see Sportacus and Stephanie leaving her house. The speakers clunked down as boots firmly hit the ground, and again, and again. That muscle-bound elf was flipping. Flustered, Robbie turned away from the periscope and pondered what to do. His peace and quiet was definitely over, but he really wasn't in the mood for a scheme.

"Maybe I'll go take a stroll. It wouldn't hurt to stretch my legs a bit after all that sleep, and it'll get me away from those noisy kids and Sportaflop. But it's exercise! Do I really want to?" Robbie thought this over for a while, and ultimately decided that he would go, but not for exercise or anything, just to get away from the noise and buy some coffee since he was almost out.

He grabbed his phone and wallet, stuffed them into his pockets and climbed up and outside. It was scalding hot, and Robbie wished he had worn something more appropriate for the weather. Actually, thinking about what attire would be, no he didn't. So he sweated his way towards the local corner-store, ducking behind a wall when passing the playground section of Lazy Park, as he knew that's where a lot of the brats hung out when they weren't doing sports. He didn't want them making him join their game. Not that they'd want to, who'd want to hang out with the town villain? No-one, that's who.

Straightening up as he passed the park, Robbie cut round a sharp corner to the road he was walking to, and picked up his pace when he remembered the store had air-conditioning. In no time at all he was through the door and into the cool little shop.

"Morning, Mr. Rotten!" lisped the spotty teenage cashier, "We've moved the stock around a bit, the coffee's down there." He stuck his thumb in the direction of a small shelf of chewing-gum, plastic Tupperware tubs and glorious instant coffee.

Robbie grabbed two containers of coffee and took them to the till. Not name-brand, nothing special but they were cheap, and hey, coffee is coffee, at least for him.

"That'll be $6.50 Mr. Rotten. Anything else?" the cashier chirped.

"No, no, I'm alright. Thanks, kid." replied Robbie. He paid, took a small bag from the stack on the counter, put the coffee in and left, heading back to the lair.

~

Stephanie had been playing soccer with Pixel and Sportacus for around half an hour when her thoughts began to wander back to how little time she had left here. How she'd never be able to play soccer with her friends again. How she'd-

"Stephanie! The ball!" Pixel yelled, snapping her abruptly back to reality. The soccer ball had rolled right past her. She ran towards it and halfheartedly kicked it to Sportacus, who headbutted it and sent it spinning high into the air. It soared right over the sports field's walls, and into a neighbour's garden.

"I'll get it!" called Sportacus, dabbing and running off in the direction the ball went.

"um, Stephanie? Is everything alright with you? You've never, um, missed a kick before, is there something wrong?" Pixel asked, looking at Stephanie with eyes full of concern.

"Pixel, I'm leav-leaving. I-I'm leaving Lazy Town t-today," Stephanie answered, tears swamping her eyes and quickly beginning to fall, "a-and I don't want to go! I'm -hic- used to having f-friends now! I-I'll have no-one to talk to! And I'll..." she trailed off, tears streaming down her face, "I'll miss you guys... I'll m-miss you so so much! And Sportacus says I ca- can't stay, that I'm going to have to go, no matter h-how much we'll mi-miss eachother..."

"Oh god, Stephanie... I knew you would eventually need to leave but I didn't know you had no friends to go back to! I'll, um, be right back." Pixel clearly had no idea how to deal with his friend in this state, and he ran off, presumably to find Sportacus. After a while she heard them returning, and looked up from her position, hunched on the ground.

Sportacus began to speak to Stephanie without even really looking at her, "I'm sorry, no-one was in the house the ball landed in. I knocked and waited for quite a while but no answer, and I didn't want to jump into the garden without permission from the house's owner. I hope that's alrigh..." She saw him look down and finally notice her crying. "Stephanie! What's wrong?" he asked, with a look of slight embarrassment on his face that he hadn't noticed her there.

Pixel moved towards her.  "Sportacus, it was me. I asked her what was wrong and it reminded her, and now she's-now she's crying! I'm sorry, Stephanie. I shouldn't have asked. Please don't hold anything against me!" he said desperately.

Stephanie looked up at him. "It's fine." she said, "I was going to have to tell you anyways." Pixel nodded solemnly, knowing she was telling the truth. Tears were still silently streaming down her face and she couldn't stop them. Sportacus looked at her concerned, but didn't say anything. They sat there in silence for what felt like hours to Stephanie but was probably only minutes in reality. Pixel left, not really knowing what to do, and eventually Sportacus asked,

"Stephanie, is there anything I can do? I hate to see you like this."

She didn't answer for a long time, pondering if there even was anything he could do, and eventually settled on something unrealistic, silly and seemingly the only thing he could do to help. "Sportacus... could you be my dad? Because, like, you said I had to go back, because of my parents, and-and school, and, and there's a school just near here and if you were..." she trailed off, properly realising how stupid she sounded, and looked down at the ground, scared he would think she was weird for even thinking this.

"I don't think so, no. It's a bit more complicated than that, and would take much longer than you have left. But just because I can't doesn't mean I wouldn't want to..!" Sportacus smiled weakly, and Stephanie did too, relived that he wasn't judging her but disappointed that she was right, it wasn't going to happen. "Have you packed yet?" he asked.

"Well, no..." Stephanie responded embarrassedly, "I haven't. I've been kind of busy crying. I'll go do that now then!"

"Okay! See you later!" responded Sportacus, waving and calling for a ladder down from his airship. Stephanie waved back, and headed over to her uncle's house to pack up her stuff.

The door was ajar, so she just pushed it open rather than knocking, and stepped inside. The hubbub coming from the television set abruptly stopped.

"Stephanie? Is that you?" She heard her uncle call from the living room, disrupting the few seconds of eerie silence.

Stephanie put her head through the living room door, to see her uncle sitting in front of the television with a look of stunned disbelief spread across his face. "What is it, Uncle? I was just going up to pack, is something wrong?" she asked.

Milford looked at her. "Stephanie, I-I have some bad news. Oh goodness, how do I put this..." He fell into thought, clearly at a loss.

"Huh?" Stephanie looked perplexed, "Put what, Uncle?"

"Well, um, oh dear oh dear..." Milford muttered, still unsure about how to word what he had to say. "Stephanie, I think you had better look at the television."

Stephanie walked through the door, worried already, since her uncle wasn't usually this nervous around people other than Bessie, and sat down on the sofa. The screen was paused, a technological feat she never thought Milford would be capable of, and displayed on the old screen was a horrific traffic jam, in the middle of which was an upturned blue car she didn't recognise, and a dark grey Range Rover, the hood of which was smashed against the underside of the blue car and seemingly on fire, on its left side. Eyes widening in shock, her view dropped to the panel of writing on the bottom of the screen. She couldn't believe it. She wouldn't believe it. It read: **_CAR CRASH ON THE LIARTOWN HIGHWAY: 3 casualties, 1 injured, Mr Doe, and 2 killed, identified to be Mr and Mrs Meanswell._** There was more, but Stephanie wasn't there to see it. She fainted almost instantly.

In hindsight, she's very glad she sat down.

~

Robbie turned off his TV. Meanswell? As in _Meanswell_ Meanswell? Hm. Could he exploit this in any way? A scheme, to disguise himself as Mr Meanswell and take Stephanie away briefly crossed his mind, but he decided it was too risky, as she'd likely have heard the news before he got there and know it was a disguise, and besides, who was he to be cruel to a newly orphaned child? Well, Villain Number One, but still.

So, what to do? Scheming was off the table for today, better give the kid some time to calm down before stressing her out again by launching another plan. As much as he hated to admit it, the schemes were as much for attention as they were to get Sportacus out of town, and he felt that Stephanie wouldn't exactly be able to give any.

After some thought, Robbie decided he would go outside and sit in the sun for a bit, while the children seemed to be inside. He had been sitting in his chair for quite some time, since he had come back from his shopping trip, and standing up was not an easy task. He rocked forward, and fell onto his knees, bruising his ankle in the process. "I meant to do that." he muttered, picking himself up and stretching out his long legs. Sometimes he wished he was a little more physically fit, so he could avoid situations like this. But only sometimes.

Robbie climbed out of his lair with some difficulty, as his legs were still fairly stiff, and blinked in the daylight. A cool breeze had set in and it wasn't nearly as hot as it was when he had gone out earlier, which was definitely a good thing. As he made his way towards Lazy Park, he passed the town square, which was oddly quiet and tranquil. Robbie stopped to take in his surroundings. It really wasn't every day the town was this calm, this lazy.

Robbie must have stayed standing there for a moment longer than Fate would have liked, because he looked up just then to see a quickly descending Sportacus holding onto what seemed to be a... blue and white scarf? Sportacus spotted him and swerved, but Robbie did too and he ended up landing, butt first, onto Robbie's terrified face. They collapsed to the ground in a tangled heap. He felt himself flush bright red, and saw Sportacus do the same, before he got up and sprinted off towards Stephanie's house, presumably to talk to her. Robbie lay there, limbs splayed out across the ground, face still a gorgeous shade of tomato.

"What. Just. Happened?" he asked himself, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "Guess I'm not speaking to him again. Ever."

Laying there, staring up at the sun, quiet, calm, waiting for his face to return to its normal colour, breathing deeply and relaxing his mind, Robbie realised just how bad this was for his eyesight. He quickly got up and scampered to a bench on the near side of Lazy Park, rubbing his eyes to get rid of the sun-shaped afterimage imprinted on his retinas.

~

Stephanie came to a few minutes later, feeling a cool, wet towel pressed against her forehead. Her vision swam, and as it began to focus, she could make out Sportacus standing over her with the cloth to her head, and her uncle Milford bumbling nervously in the background.

"I'm awake, I think." Stephanie said simply, not knowing what else to say. Sportacus removed the towel, smiling. Her head was clouded with thoughts and was still a bit fuzzy, so it was no surprise that her groggy brain registered Sportacus asking, quite concernedly, if she was okay a little bit late. He looked at her expectantly for a few seconds, waiting for an answer, but none came. Instead, Stephanie, from the depths of her groggy, clouded brain she smiled and asked, "Does this mean you can be my dad now?"

Some say the semi-conscious mind tells one's true feelings, conscious enough to know who is listening, but not so much that one would hold back from speaking the unfiltered thought.

**Author's Note:**

> I know a 6-hour drive isn't so bad for you Americans, but I just couldn't bring myself to make it any longer 0~0  
> Thank you so much for taking the time to read this! I have been told that it's good but I don't really believe that (yay for self-depreciation!)  
> ^U^
> 
> p.s. sorry for the pretentious thing at the end, I wasn't sure how to finish it.


End file.
